so the yearly obama trip to hawaii is set to start a week from next monday. you feel me here? see where i'm going? the window closing faster than folks think. what are our decisionmakers doing right now? among other things they are apparently sending signals through the media. republicans saying time to get moving. the president saying there is a deal to be had fairly quickly if the republicans come around to raising taxes on the wealthy. let me give you the president first. >> -- good faith offer to avert the fiscal crisis, and that offer included significant spending cuts and reforms, and it included additional revenue. and frankly it was the balanced approach that the president has been asking for. now we need a response from the white house. we can't sit here and negotiate with ourselves. our targets and framework are things that we can all agree on. and it is exactly how we approached our discussions in the biden group, my discussions at the white house a year and a half ago and for that matter, in the joint select committee. and if the president doesn't agree with our pr